MFT Sketch 522 Bees

 Happy New Year!!  I guess whether or not it will be happy remains to be seen. lol I've been stamping a bit more this past week since my shoulder feels some better. I did go to physical therapy last week and she think it's a sprained rotator cuff. I have exercises to do daily and will go to therapy weekly. So fingers crossed!!  This card is for the MFT Wednesday Sketch Challenge. I hope I got it close enough. SO many BEES!!!

 

 

That's about it for me. I'm chatting with some friends on Zoom and hoping to make a card. :)   Take care. 

 

Rita 

MFT Double Challenge

Hi friends. How are you? Still hanging in there? We are, but some days it seems like we barely do. I have been stamping and mailing out cards, but blogging seems like a lot of work. I don't know why? Maybe it's just the extra time to edit a picture and then write up everything. Much easier to just mail it, right?  Anyway, today I played along with the MFT Color Challenge and their weekly Wednesday Sketch Challenge I hadn't used this cute set yet and thought it might be perfect.

Aren't those fun? I got as close to the colors as I could from my stash of supplies, so I hope I got close enough.

So life here seems the same most days. Laila did have some excitement this week. She got a new loft bed that she is LOVING. She went from a full bed to a twin, but she loves being up high. Plus that leaves room underneath for a future reading area. She also decided to become a hair butcher and cut off a big chunk of her hair in the front. She went from hair halfway down her back to up above her shoulders for now. She cut a patch almost down to the scalp in the main front, so we'll have to deal with that once it starts growing out. Crazy kid. I wasn't planning on going near a hair salon for a while but we had to get it fixed. It was awful because she cut it with kitchen shears.

So yeah, that's our fun. lol We are still doing school and trying to make that work without our library. It does open back up soon for pickups, so we shall be ready for that!

I'm off to read for a bit before bed. Take care.

Rita

MFT Witchy Spell

Monday. Ugh. I did get to glue down this card that I started yesterday, but that's about it. I had to pick Laila up a bit after 9 so that's pretty much been my day. She wasn't even there long enough to be considered present for the day. I think I give up. :/ I hope to get my Halloween cards addressed and mailed out tomorrow if I can work on them after she goes to bed tonight. I promised myself I'd actually mail them this year.  lol This uses the MFT Card Challenges sketch and their Witch Way is the Candy set.

Off to find something else for us to do. It's been a longggggg day. Fingers crossed for a better week to come. 

Halloween Hello

Happy Sunday. I didn't think I was going to get a card made and posted today, but I am REALLY trying to do it daily this month and didn't want to fail so far in. So, I grabbed my Halloween box of goodies and started working. I made a simple card using the sketch at MFT Card Challenges. I'd also like to enter Colour Crazy Challenge as well.

Have a most wonderful week! If not, have lots of coffee and wine. lol 

Witch Way is the Candy?

Happy October!!  I guess it's time for Halloween stamps and decorations, huh? I was excited to grab this set from MFT as it's one of my favorite images to color. It's just so fun!!  I used it along with the current sketch at MFT Card Challenges. I'd also like to enter A Gem of  Challenge's last challenge (sad) and Dragonfly Journeys, both with a Halloween theme.

My goal for October is to get more creative time in and to get more cards in the mail. I'll also try to actually blog the cards I make, but for some reason that seems to be a HUGE challenge lately. I have mailed out several that I totally forgot to even photograph. Bummer, right?? 

I haven't posted a lot about our butterfly garden, but it's still going. It's been raining so much that I don't get to go out that often. I'm going to have a lot of weeding to do once we do dry up a little. Yikes. 

Have a great week. I'm off to grab a second coffee and check out some challenges for today. (and do laundry of course). 

MFT Card Challenge 388

Tuesday! That means we survived Monday, right? Man yesterday seemed like a long day. We have some plans with friends for today, so hopefully that will help. It's so dang hot that it's hard to go out and do too much. I managed to make a card and I might even get it uploaded before the challenge ends. Woo hoo!!  It's for the MFT Card Challenges sketch this week and uses their You Gnome Me set.

Now I'm off to move the clothes to the dryer so that I have something to wear to our lunch date and to grab a second coffee! Important stuff there. lol Laila has summer school two days a week for two hours a day, so I get a little quiet break tomorrow. Maybe I won't have to think about sharks for a few hours. She's obsessed this week! We've made paper sharks and checked out a ton of shark books from the library. Whew!

MFT Card Challenges 376

Just a quick post to enter my card in the MFT Card Challenges sketch challenge. :) I finally managed to finish it up today in between cleaning bathrooms. I had put it to the side because one of my markers made a big blob on her face as I was coloring her hair. I tried to fix it as best I could and I think it recovered okay.

Now I'm heading to the kitchen to start up the dishwasher and then off to relax and read for a bit. It's been an emotional evening of school drama and I need to decompress.  Have a great week!

MFT Sketch Challenge 374

Hey!  Happy Sunday. Where did Saturday go so fast? Man!!  We worked a little outside in the butterfly garden this week, but I also found some time to come in and color. I've been trying to get back in the habit of making cards. Oh, and mailing them. lol This card is for the MFT Sketch Challenge from this week. I'm usually a coffee girl, but I do have a couple friends who enjoy tea.

Things have been about the same here. Laila had some great days at school, but ended the week in a blaze of glory. Jason had to carry her out of the library on Friday at dismissal. That's two weeks in a row for that. :(  We did get her results back from testing and she will qualify for an IEP. We meet with the large group this Friday to see what that will mean for her. She already has a full-time aide which helps some, but not always. I feel so down about it all right now because I've reached a point where I don't know what else to do.

She did earn her white belt on Thursday. She should have gotten it on Tuesday, but she wasn't listening or participating very well. That was our first screaming meltdown of the week. She did much better on Thursday though. We have a couple more weeks to decide if we want to do the year contract for it, so we'll see how it goes.

That's all for me. I am off to read a bit and maybe have a second coffee. :)

MFTWSC369 Super Girl

Taking a break from the last few cards with a super one.  :)  Laila had two great days in a row at school, so I wanted to make a card to put in her lunch on Friday. Well, of course she ended up sick and home. I swear anytime we are making progress that happens and kills the momentum.  These school germs are just devious. lol  I used the current sketch from the MFT Card Challenges blog for my card. I had some new markers for skin and hair, so I gave those a shot on this one. We'll see how Monday goes!

Now I'm off to find more medicine. I think she's already shared the germs and I feel awful. I took a nap and woke up feeling worse! Ugh!!   Have a great rest of the weekend. 

MFT Creative Construction with Blueprints

Hi again!  I figured I'd go ahead and play along with another challenge since I had the products on my desk that would work for it. The MFT Creative Blueprints challenge was about using stars.  I used Blueprints 18 for yesterday's card and it has a star. Perfect, right?  I used a sheet of cute Stampin' Up! birthday paper that a friend sent me along with a SU button and twine. It's so nice to have those things nearby. They actually are getting used!  Yay!!

Are you guys working on your resolutions for next year? I don't know why I keep making them, but I do. And then I fail. I'm adding a journal in this year to try and help keep me on track.  Nobody wants to disappoint their journal, right? :)

My goals:
Get rid of things we don't use and simplify our house
Make more of our food/cut out processed food
Create more, do more challenges, mail out cards

I've been making a lot more of our food already, at least the bread. I might share a recipe on some of my posts just in case anyone is interested.

Jason eats breakfast sandwiches before he leaves for work and we usually buy those Jimmy Dean frozen ones. Blah. I decided to tackle making them. Costco had uncured Canadian bacon, so that worked out perfectly. (and reminds me that I forgot to buy more of that today. Oops)

Here's the recipe for those. I think they turned out quite nice. They don't have all the nooks and crannies, but I know what's in them!

Off to figure out dinner tonight. I know one thing, NO LEFTOVER HAM. I feel like we ate that for every meal yesterday. lol

Color Challenge with Gnomes

Did everyone survive the holiday??  We made it, but man we are tired. Poor Jason had to go back to work today and he sure didn't want to. I took a little bit of time to play around with some stamps and dies from My Favorite Things. Their current color challenge looked fun, so I pulled out some stamps and markers and gave it a shot. :) It's been a while since I tried masking, so I even did a bit of that.


I love these little gnomes so much. I colored and added a second one inside, so there's double the fun in this card. Jason got me an awesome new desk for my birthday and I was able to move a lot of my stuff to the drawers and within reach. I decided to use a button and some twine since they were handy. :) I really really really need to start using up some stuff! lol

Laila had some money from my parents left to spend, so she found this giant Pikachu pillow at Target last week. That girl loves Pikachu. He's good for reading. She keeps trying to sleep on him at night, but that doesn't work so great. lol

I'm off to turn on a podcast and hopefully fall asleep early. I've been battling some crazy sleep issues this month and I stay so tired. Maybe I can get in a few hours before my brain needs to think and think for a while.

Take care.

MFT Card Challenges 359

I stamped something! Yay! I finally took a little break and came in to my room to try and make something over the weekend. I am having a rough time with it, but I did a little coloring and made this card. It's for the current sketch at MFT Card Challenges.  I love these cute little bee and butterflies from the set.

I've still been reading a lot. I joined Book of the Month and got my first two books in, one being the Sleeping Beauties from Stephen and Owen King. I'm hooked, but it's a long one! Laila isn't feeling that great, so we'll see how much reading I get to do while she's off this week. She has a little bit of a fever tonight, so I don't know what we are in for.  She was feeling a little better earlier today, so we went to a local nursery to look for some plants for the school garden. The gardening club is starting next week and we are going to try it. Fingers crossed! 

One of the sweet ladies I met at Lydia's retreat sent us this book. It came today, so we were able to curl up and read it. It's so neat! One of the ladies she went to high school with wrote it, so we got our very own autographed copy. I thought that was just the sweetest thing. I'm sure we will read it a bunch since that's our hobby. :) 

I'm off to figure out what medicine to give her before bed. I hope you are having a good start to the Thanksgiving week. 

Hugs

By the Numbers Halloween Style

Happy World Card Making Day!  I hope you found some time to get inky today.  I managed three cards and am debating another before bed.  MFT has some fun challenges, so I've been working on those.  This one is for the By the Numbers challenge. I hope you can see my numbers. I didn't really have number stamps or dies, so I used my Cameo to cut out numbers.  Kinda fun to play around with different ideas. :)

It's been a very low-key day here.  We needed one! I hope you are having a great weekend.  Enjoy your Sunday! Here's Little Lady having a stressful Saturday. 

MFT Card Challenges 353

Greetings! Can you believe it's October? Like really???  I have all these fun Halloween and fall stamps, but how many will I have time to use???  I fell in love with this cute Witch Way is the Candy set from My Favorite Things and had to get her this time around. It was so awesome of them to bring her back because so many people wanted one!  I used it for this week's sketch challenge at MFT Card Challenges.



It's been an interesting week since I last posted. Laila had early release on Wednesday, so I picked her up at noon. Yesterday was just a stressful day of messages and calls from school. Jason handled much of that thank goodness. I can't do the whole week of negative feedback. But, today seemed some better and we are now on track to get her some accommodations to try and make her days better. I don't know how many times the counselor told us she was a VERY strong-willed child. Like yeah, we know that. Oh boy do we know that!  I think she sat in the hallway for over two hours yesterday because she wouldn't apologize her to teacher for something. (and yeah, that's an issue we'll bring up in her 504 meeting as it's too long of a time out of class). I am connecting our behavior specialist that we worked with this year with the counselor in hopes that she can pass along some things that she found to help. So, keep us in your thoughts please. It's going to be an interesting  year. I'm already struggling myself because the constant negative feedback just destroys me.

We went to Target after early release on Wednesday and looked at Halloween stuff. She's already got her costume, but she loves all the skeletons and pumpkins. :)

She's going to be a Monarch butterfly. :) We have to find tights and she should be ready to go! I love that she picked that one. 

MFT Card Challenges 352

Happy October. It's still in the 90s here in Texas, but I'm going to pretend it is about 60 and I'm surrounded by pretty leaves. :) I did use some pretty fall paper on my card.  I used the current sketch at the MFT Card Challenges blog for the layout. I have some birthdays coming up and I don't seem to have that many birthday cards. I think I must have put some in a safe place and they are there being safe from me finding them!  That seems to happen every time I clean my room. You'd think I'd learn that cleaning is a bad idea, huh? lol

Not much going on this weekend for us. Laila and I are both sniffling and coughing, so we've been pretty lazy. I think I took a 3 hour nap yesterday.  I felt awful and I guess I needed the rest.  Those school germs paired with the pollen is too much I guess. 

We finally got in our school shirts and she was excited to wear one this week. They are both too big, but this one wasn't a dress like the other one. We had swimming twice this week and she moved up to the next level.  I love watching her at her lessons because she just loves it so much.  I found out that we can go to extra classes during the week for $10 a class if they have availability, so I'll be taking advantage of that. We've also been going to more library programs after school as well. Wednesday we went and they got to make cute bag pinatas. 

That's it for me today.  I'm hoping to make a card every day this month, so you might see more posts. I have lost the battery charger for my camera, so I'm stuck with iPhone pictures until I find that. It's also in a safe place I guess. lol 

Have a great week!

MFT Card Challenges 351

Happy Monday? Okay, maybe not? lol It's been okay here so far today.  I am still figuring out all this "free" time with Laila being in school. Today I had some real fun with dishes, scrubbing the bathrooms, and laundry. Woo Hoo!  I did decide to give myself a little break to create, so I made a card for the sketch from MFT Card Challenges blog.  Coloring is always fun and relaxing, especially when watching Netflix.

I love the distress oxide inks so much, so I used them for my background. I actually won a set at a retreat I went to this month. One of my friends whisked me away and we learned some new techniques and made a lot of new friends. It was awesome. It's always nice when your husband and friends work together to get you a break to refresh. 

Did I mention that Laila is taking swimming lessons? She LOVES it. It has been so wonderful to see her smile and have fun when she goes.  I think it will be something we keep doing for a while. She is doing great and hasn't had any upsets so far. She had a great day of school on Friday. I think her teacher is getting her a bit more and realizing how to head off meltdowns and defiance a bit better.  I know she has her hands full, but we keep in constant communication and try to keep things consistent between home and school.  We sent in the paperwork to have her tested for the gifted and talented program and also for small groups with the school counselor for anxiety/social issues.  I want her to be successful and I feel like this school will be help us get her there. 

I'm off for more coffee and maybe playing with the Gel Press we got at the retreat! 

MFT Card Challenge 347

Howdy! I did a bit of stamping yesterday and today and wanted to share one of my projects. I loved the sketch at MFT Card Challenges this week. I didn't have the die to make the shape they used, so I made due with a boring old rectangle. You know how much I love this set, so I colored it in Laila's favorite colors, orange and green.  :) It probably makes it look a bit Halloweenish, but that's okay. Halloween is awesome and coming up soon, so I can always use it then.

Hurricane Harvey is still dropping a lot of rain on my area, so we are staying inside.  Roads are flooded and some businesses and houses are starting to as well.  We missed the direct hit and the wind, but the rain is going to do a lot of damage. :( School won't be starting tomorrow and is postponed until at least Wednesday now.  Send good thoughts to Texas in hopes that the rain moves out soon.

We did get out some yesterday during a lull and took a walk.  That hasn't happened today, so we are inside with a bit of cabin fever.  Laila wants to go splash in puddles again, but it's a bit more than puddles out there right now.  I'll share a picture of her from yesterday as well as a beautiful butterfly that came to visit.  We haven't seen any butterflies today, but the rain hasn't stopped our little hummingbird from visiting the feeder.

Off to eat lunch and maybe sneak in a nap.  I have lots of new books on my Kindle and of course there's always stamping...

MFT Card Challenges Sketch 346

Happy Saturday!  How's your weekend going?  Things have been pretty good here.  My sister-in-law came over today and took Laila shopping for  her birthday.  Her step-daughter, who is about 6 months younger than Laila, was with her so they got to play some.  I made this card for Miss Laila.  I need to get a photo box to put the ones I make for her in so I can quickly grab them on school days. :) This card uses products from My Favorite Things and is for their Card Challenges sketch challenge.

So Laila LOVED her swimming lesson yesterday.  She didn't have any upsets, but was probably a bit too excited.  lol  Hopefully the newness wears off and she can focus better next week.  She did great on what they practiced and is ready to go back! We had to go shopping afterwards to see if we could find her a new bathing suit. She's grown so much this summer that hers are about too small.  Thankfully Kohl's had some in the clearance that would work.